Recipes

Torta di San Biagio, a delight to try

Preparing the San Biagio cake is the best choice if you are looking for quick and easy desserts but at the same time characteristic.

The San Biagio cake is a crumbly Mantuan dessert typical above all of the town of Cavirana. It is here that its story begins and it is here that the dessert, still today, is the symbol of the patron saint’s feast which occurs every year on February 3.

Coming to the dessert, the San Biagio cake looks like a classic tart but the dough is slightly different. This De.CO product (Municipal Designation of Origin), is prepared with lard and white wine in addition to the more classic ingredients such as flour, sugar and eggs. As for the filling instead, you need almonds , sugar, dark chocolate , eggs and a liqueur of your choice between rum and anise. Let’s see all the steps to prepare it!

How to prepare the San Biagio cake recipe

Combine the flour, 80 g of sugar, lard and white wine in a bowl and knead with your hands until you get a homogeneous mixture.
Roll out about 2/3 of them with the help of a rolling pin until you reach a thickness such as to precisely line a 24 cm tart mold .
Separately, mix the almond flour, the remaining sugar, the eggs, the rum and the grated chocolate.
Pour the filling into the base and level well.
Then roll out the remaining dough, form strips with a serrated dough wheel and arrange them on the cake, creating the classic rhombus decoration .
Bake at 180 ° C for 30-35 minutes then remove from the oven and let it cool completely before serving.

If you are looking for quick and easy recipes, this one is really perfect because as you can see it doesn’t even need the rest time of the dough. Alternatively, we recommend trying the simpler chocolate tart .

The history of the sweet of San Biagio

The San Biagio di Cavriana cake has a very ancient history: it seems that almond trees were grown in that area of Mantua as early as 1600 and, according to legend , the first cake had a diameter of 3 meters. Also according to legend, the first cake was prepared in honor of Queen Anne, wife of the French king Louis XIII on a visit to the city. Another custom that accompanies the day of San Biagio is to go to church for the blessing of the throat and nose : in the local dialect the saying reads “ Al dì ‘d San Biàs as benedìs the throat and the nose “.

storage

The San Biagio cake can be kept out of the refrigerator for a week , covered by a cake bell